John huddled around himself, cringing away from Siren as she circled him. His brash confidence had slipped under the torture of her attack, and he was uncertain what to do next. She was more powerful than he, more experienced. And he clung to the handful of threads that still tied him to his body with the tenacity and terror of a small child holding a beloved toy, even as he realized that they were also holding him back from his full potential on this plane -- and his full ability to fight.
Siren moved closer again and he could hear her humming to herself. He shuddered in disgust. He could feel her pleasure at his pain, and he struggled to force it down, denying her. She chuckled at his effort and John could almost see the twisted future she was just realizing. He could feel her desire for him growing.
Playfully, she reached out to invade his mind, looking to enjoy the lingering aches she knew he still felt. John threw up his hand, shielding himself weakly and they struggled together for a moment. Smiling, she withdrew, and John dropped the shield, shaking from the effort.
"So," he panted, letting his mouth run as was his habit when he was terrified, "Not supposed to mess with the 'portal'. Any other nifty rules I should know about? And please don't tell me that killing you is off the table, because I'll just take my crayons and go home if you do."
"You will learn, in time. And you cannot kill that which never lived."
"I'm not that up on my Ancient history, but I do know that all of you who ascended were mortal once. Kindof how I got the idea to come here, in fact. Kindof thinking it was a really terrible idea…" He muttered the last to himself.
Siren was incensed, "You DARE accuse me of being Ancient?!!! Those weak and ideological blasphemers are no kin of mine. MY kind will rule all galaxies, and when they do, I will be set free to feed upon the pain of mortals again." Siren drew herself into indignant wrath, and the winds swirled again in random wildness. Madness flashed in her eyes at the release of temper.
Below in the meadow, John saw Ronon take a single step towards the DHD as Siren raged, and then freeze again as she brought herself under control. What had she meant by her kind? Was she held captive here? Damn he hoped so… Another idea was beginning to take shape.
"So…so sorry. My mistake. Not Ancient, got that too. What about the mortal part?"
"My parents were ascended. I came to be as I am."
"You ever meet any of your neighbors? There are a few like you around. Well, not like you exactly. But, Ascended I mean. Yet, if you don't like Ancients, you probably wouldn't like…her."
Siren frowned, and John braced himself, hoping she was as jealous as she was insane. "There is another bound Ascended on Proculus. She hides on her rock and mourns for the mortals. She actually tends to them." The disgust in Siren's voice was evident and extreme. "The power she wastes is abominable!"
"Oh, well." John shrugged and continued as if he hadn't heard Siren. "I liked her. Real nice woman, we became quite close actually."
Siren was growing hot with jealousy, and John opened his mind to her, just a bit, to flaunt the friendship and…other things…he had shared with Chaya. He hastily went on, deliberately trying to push her buttons, wondering why, when she seemed so unstable and mercurial, that now of all times she held her temper in check. "And then there were a few other friends of mine who ascended just recently. Actually, they weren't Ancients at all, so you might like them. When I finish here, I think I'll go look some of them up, say Hi. You meet anyone named Teer? Avrid? Hedda?"
"You will stay!" Siren snarled the command, and ceased her circling. John felt her gather herself.
"No, thanks. Got other plans. The invitation to eternal damnation and suffering is tempting though. Maybe some other time."
Siren pounced and John was ready, if unqualified, to defend himself. He flung up his shield, and her blows fell upon it, pressing him into the fabric of the universe with forceful tension. He gritted his teeth with the effort of repelling her attack, but she still held her anger in check and he growled in frustration. "Is that all you've got?"
With a savage strike, Siren broke through John's weak defenses and dove into his mind, searching for his memories of Chaya and Teer. He felt her jealousy grow at his genuine affection for them. He gathered himself for one last taunt, hoping it would throw her over into rage, "They're both more powerful than you know, more powerful than you could ever be! Their kindness is their power!"
With a shriek, she slashed at his mind with razor-claws and threw him from her. The few remaining threads to his mortal life stretched and frayed and he snatched for them, holding them tightly in his bare hands, feeling them slipping ever so slightly as Siren's temper was released at last.
Howling with fury, Siren stalked John, slashed again and cried out in furious joy when he grunted with the pain of her assault. John cringed again, hindered by his grasp on the threads from fleeing or striking back. Trembling, he tried to reform the shield, and Siren laughed, bending for another blow.
"Ronon… go!" whispered John.
Ronon stood leaning into the wind. Waiting. He was not sophisticated in his understanding of the Ancestors, or the whole ascension thing, but he understood combat strategy. And he understood Sheppard. If Sheppard were prevented from dialing the 'gate himself, he would distract or lure the enemy away long enough for someone else to do it. He knew Sheppard would do this because it's what he would do.
For an instant, the resistance seemed less determined, and Ronon took a single step forward. But the wind returned, and so Ronon continued to wait.
When another, sudden storm swirled up around the meadow, Ronon prepared himself, his heart hammering excitedly. Such was the tension of his frame that when the gale in his face finally faltered, Ronon shot forward like an arrow out of a bow. He was at the DHD before the others even felt the difference and began slamming his hands into the symbols. The storm continued escalating around him, but he braced himself and completed the code.
"Move away! I'm activating the Stargate," he yelled into the shrieking noise of wind and flying debris.
Teyla and McKay scrambled to haul Sheppard's body the few feet away they needed to be safe from the 'gate's initializing vortex. Afraid to wait any longer as the wind grew fiercer, Ronon leered with a ferocity of his own… and slapped the glowing globe.
John felt the thrum of power as the Stargate activated, its energies affecting and drawing somehow from this plane as well as its own. Feeling a surge of weary triumph, he glared at Siren who stood frozen in irate surprise. "Those mortals are more powerful than you'll ever be," he said quietly, shakily holding up the three remaining threads in his hand.
Enraged, she smashed him aside to lay in a soul-bruised heap.
"But they are still mortal," she replied, her voice dripping with vengeance.
John gasped as he saw her draw back for a killing strike. He threw himself in her path, laying his consciousness tightly around his team, using his very body to deflect Siren's wrath. She shrieked at him, and sliced into his mind, over and over with devastating agony. He felt the threads vibrate with his anguish, even as they slipped further through his shaking palm. But his team, his friends, only needed a few more seconds – a few more steps – a few more millimeters of thread.
Siren ceased her clawing and yanked on John's mind, pulling him up to look at her. "You are new here," she breathed. "You do not yet know that even the ascended…can die!"
"Go…screw…yourself," John panted, closing his eyes. He lay calmly in the betweenness, waiting for Siren's blow, almost amused at the thought of facing the nothingness again – from here.
When she shrieked again, he was unable to suppress a tremble of terror, then the shriek faded and he felt like he was suddenly moving very fast, pulled along by the threads in his hand that he held by mere molecules of thought.
When John stopped moving, everything was very quiet. He was very alone. He lay in the betweenness with his eyes closed. Even his half-formed consciousness was exhausted and he drifted for a time until his tightly clenched hand began to ache with the effort of holding onto his life. In sudden terror, he felt the last thread slip loose and he grabbed for it with a desperate lunge. His hand closed tightly and he started to fall, willingly giving up ascension for the chance, however slim, to live again. Darkness rose up to envelope him in its chilled embrace, and he fell further still.
Even then, he didn't know on which side of the knife-edge of death he would land.